Google Search Tips

google search tips

Tuesday, September 6, 11

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/static.py?
hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=1221265&answer=134479&rd=1

Every Word Matters
Almost all the words
you put in will be used.

Every word matters. Generally, all the words you put in the query will be used.

Case insensitive
new york times
=
New York Times

Search is always case insensitive. A search for [ new york times ] is the same as a search for[ New York Times ].

punctuation ignored
@#$%^&*()=+[]

Generally, punctuation is ignored, including @#$%^&*()=+[] and other special characters.

Keep it simple
pizza 63376

Keep it simple. If you're looking for a particular company, just enter its name, or as much of its name as you can recall. If you're looking for a particular
concept, place, or product, start with its name. If you're looking for a pizza restaurant, just enter pizza and the name of your town or your zip code. Most
queries do not require advanced operators or unusual syntax. Simple is good.

words on the page
my head hurts
vs
headache

Think how the page you are looking for will be written. A search engine is not a human, it is a program that matches the words you give to pages on
the web. Use the words that are most likely to appear on the page. For example, instead of saying [ my head hurts ], say [ headache ],because
that's the term a medical page will use. The query[ in what country are bats considered an omen of good luck? ] is very clear to a
person, but the document that gives the answer may not have those words. Instead, use the query [ bats are considered good luck in ] or
even just [ bats good luck ], because that is probably what the right page will say.

fewest terms
weather report for cancun
mexico vs weather cancun

Describe what you need with as few terms as possible. The goal of each word in a query is to focus it further. Since all words are used, each
additional word limits the results. If you limit too much, you will miss a lot of useful information. The main advantage to starting with fewer keywords is
that, if you don't get what you need, the results will likely give you a good indication of what additional words are needed to refine your results on the
next search. For example, [ weather cancun ] is a simple way to find the weather and it is likely to give better results than the longer[ weather
report for cancun mexico ].

descriptive words
celebrity ringtones
vs
celebrity sounds

Choose descriptive words. The more unique the word is the more likely you are to get relevant results. Words that are not very descriptive, like
'document,' 'website,' 'company,' or 'info,' are usually not needed. Keep in mind, however, that even if the word has the correct meaning but it is not the
one most people use, it may not match the pages you need. For example, [ celebrity ringtones ] is more descriptive and specific than
[ celebrity sounds ].

phrase search
“Martin Luther”
vs
“Martin Luther King”

Phrase search ("")
By putting double quotes around a set of words, you are telling Google to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change. Google
already uses the order and the fact that the words are together as a very strong signal and will stray from it only for a good reason, so quotes are
usually unnecessary.

Caution:

phrase search
“Alexander Bell”
vs
“Alexander G. Bell”

Phrase search ("")
Caution: By insisting on phrase search you might be missing good results accidentally. For example, a search for [ "Alexander Bell" ] (with quotes)
will miss the pages that refer to Alexander G. Bell.

specific site
site:
Example
iraq site:nytimes.com

Search within a specific website (site:)
Google allows you to specify that your search results must come from a given website. For example, the query [ iraq site:nytimes.com ] will
return pages about Iraq but only from nytimes.com. The simpler queries [ iraq nytimes.com ] or [ iraq New York Times ] will usually be just as
good, though they might return results from other sites that mention the New York Times.

specific site
site:
Example
iraq site:.gov or iraq site:.org

Search within a specific website (site:)
You can also specify a whole class of sites, for example [ iraq site:.gov ] will return results only from a .gov domain and [ iraq site:.iq ] will
return results only from Iraqi sites.

exclude
jaguar -cars -football -os

Terms you want to exclude (-)
Attaching a minus sign immediately before a word indicates that you do not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The minus sign
should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded with a space. You can exclude as many words as you want by using the - sign in
front of all of them, for example [ jaguar -cars -football -os ].

exclude
anti-virus software
vs
anti-virus -software

For example, in the query [ anti-virus software ], the minus sign is used as a hyphen and will not be interpreted as an exclusion symbol; whereas
the query [ anti-virus -software ] will search for the words 'anti-virus' but exclude references to software.

exclude
jaguar -site:apple.com

The - sign can be used to exclude more than just words. For example, place a hyphen before the 'site:' operator (without a space) to exclude
a specific site from your search results.

wild card
Google *
or
Obama voted * on the * bill

Fill in the blanks (*)
The *, or wildcard, is a little-known feature that can be very powerful. If you include * within a query, it tells Google to try to treat the star as a
placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches. For example, the search [ Google * ] will give you results about many
of Google's products (go to next page and next page -- we have many products). The query[ Obama voted * on the * bill ] will give
you stories about different votes on different bills. Note that the * operator works only on whole words, not parts of words.

search as is
+ca history

Search exactly as is (+)
Google employs synonyms automatically, so that it finds pages that mention, for example, childcare for the query [ child care ] (with a
space), or California history for the query [ ca history ]. But sometimes Google helps out a little too much and gives you a synonym when
you don't really want it. By attaching a + immediately before a word (remember, don't add a space after the +), you are telling Google to match
that word precisely as you typed it. Putting double quotes around a single word will do the same thing.

or operator
San Francisco
Giants 2004 OR 2005

must be all caps
The OR operator
Google's default behavior is to consider all the words in a search. If you want to specifically alloweither one of several words, you can use the OR
operator (note that you have to type 'OR' in ALL CAPS). For example, [ San Francisco Giants 2004 OR 2005 ] will give you results about either
one of these years, whereas [ San Francisco Giants 2004 2005 ] (without the OR) will show pages that include both years on the same page.
The symbol | can be substituted for OR. (The AND operator, by the way, is the default, so it is not needed.)

exceptions
34 * 87

Google will show calculator results for the query [ 34 * 87 ] rather than use the 'Fill in the blanks'
operator.

exceptions
the, a, and for are ignored

Words that are commonly used, like 'the,' 'a,' and 'for,' are usually ignored (these are called stop words). But there are even exceptions to this
exception. The search [ the who ] likely refers to the band; the query [ who ] probably refers to the World Health Organization -- Google will
not ignore the word 'the' in the first query.

exceptions
C++ or C#
nikon 400 vs nikon $400

Punctuation in popular terms that have particular meanings, like [ C++ ] or [ C# ] (both are names of programming languages), are not ignored.
The dollar sign ($) is used to indicate prices. [ nikon 400 ] and [ nikon $400 ] will give different results.

Local time
time los angeles

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2009/06/expertise-in-google-search/

If you want to know current local time in a particular city, use the following method. To see the current local time in Los Angeles do
the following. Go-ahead and try this yourself for your local city and see how it works.

Definitions
deﬁne: dog


price range
phone $400..$600

If you are looking for a product in a speciﬁc price range use the following. It will search for the pages with text phone, and $400 to
$600 ranged text.

math
sqrt(10)
10+20

Normally for doing the metric conversions we will be using some online conversion websites or conversion softwares. However just
by using Google search box you can do calculations, unit conversions and money conversions as explained below.

unit conversion
kg to lbs
20kg to lbs


file type
linux introduction ﬁletype:ppt

The following examples searches only the matching keywords inside a Power Point presentations. In the same way, you can search
for the doc, pdf and other ﬁle types.

google advanced
http://www.google.com/
advanced_search

If you are not able to remember some of the advanced search syntax mentioned in this article, then use the Google Advanced
search page as shown below.

Google Search Tips

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